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We Fancied Even That The Bushes Smelt Unpleasantly.

-Charles Darwin

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We Fancied Even That

Charles Darwin

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We Fancied Even That The Bushes Smelt Unpleasantly.

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Looking To Future Generations, There Is No Cause To Fear That The Social Instincts Will Grow Weaker... The Social Instincts, - The Prime Principle Of Man's Moral Constitution - With The Aid Of Active Intellectual Powers And The Effects Of Habit, Naturally Lead To The Golden Rule, "as Ye Would That Men Should Do To You; Do Ye To Them Likewise"; And This Lies At The Foundation Of Morality.

I Am Aware That The Assumed Instinctive Belief In God Has Been Used By Many Persons As An Argument For His Existence. The Idea Of A Universal And Beneficent Creator Does Not Seem To Arise In The Mind Of Man, Until He Has Been Elevated By Long-continued Culture.

Owing To This Struggle For Life, Any Variation, However Slight And From Whatever Cause Proceeding, If It Be In Any Degree Profitable To An Individual Of Any Species, In Its Infinitely Complex Relationship To Other Organic Beings And To External Nature, Will Tend To The Preservation Of That Individual, And Will Generally Be Inherited By Its Offspring.

I Think It Inevitably Follows, That As New Species In The Course Of Time Are Formed Through Natural Selection, Others Will Become Rarer And Rarer, And Finally Extinct. The Forms Which Stand In Closest Competition With Those Undergoing Modification And Improvement Will Naturally Suffer Most.

...conscience Looks Backwards And Judges Past Actions, Inducing That Kind Of Dissatisfaction, Which If Weak We Call Regret, And If Severe Remorse.

At Some Future Period, Not Very Distant As Measured By Centuries, The Civilized Races Of Man Will Almost Certainly Exterminate, And Replace The Savage Races Throughout The World.

An American Monkey, After Getting Drunk On Brandy, Would Never Touch It Again, And Thus Is Much Wiser Than Most Men.

It May Be Doubted Whether Any Character Can Be Named Which Is Distinctive Of A Race And Is Constant.

We May Confidently Come To The Conclusion, That The Forces Which Slowly And By Little Starts Uplift Continents, And That Those Which At Successive Periods Pour Forth Volcanic Matter From Open Orifices, Are Identical.

We Can Allow Satellites, Planets, Suns, Universe, Nay Whole Systems Of Universes, To Be Governed By Laws, But The Smallest Insect, We Wish To Be Created At Once By Special Act.

Theory Of Evolution

Any One Whose Disposition Leads Him To Attach More Weight To Unexplained Difficulties Than To The Explanation Of Facts Will Certainly Reject My Theory.

A Fair Result Can Be Obtained Only By Fully Stating And Balancing The Facts And Arguments On Both Sides Of Each Question." Charles Darwin

Among The Scenes Which Are Deeply Impressed On My Mind, None Exceed In Sublimity The Primeval [tropical] Forests, ... Temples Filled With The Varied Productions Of The God Of Nature. No One Can Stand In These Solitudes Unmoved, And Not Feel That There Is More In Man Than The Mere Breath Of His Body.

For My Own Part I Would As Soon Be Descended From That Heroic Little Monkey, Who Braved His Dreaded Enemy In Order To Save The Life Of His Keeper; Or From That Old Baboon, Who, Descending From The Mountains, Carried Away In Triumph His Young Comrade From A Crowd Of Astonished Dogs-as From A Savage Who Delights To Torture His Enemies, Offers Up Bloody Sacrifices, Practices Infanticide Without Remorse, Treats His Wives Like Slaves, Knows No Decency, And Is Haunted By The Grossest Superstitions.

It's Not The Strongest, But The Most Adaptable That Survive.

Light May Be Shed On Man And His Origins.

It Appears To Me (whether Rightly Or Wrongly) That Direct Arguments Against Christianity And Theism Produce Hardly Any Effect On The Public; And Freedom Of Thought Is Best Promoted By The Gradual Illumination Of Men's Minds, Which Follows From The Advance Of Science.

I Cannot Persuade Myself That A Beneficent And Omnipotent God Would Have Designedly Created Parasitic Wasps With The Express Intention Of Their Feeding Within The Living Bodies Of Caterpillars.

Man Himself Cannot Express Love And Humility By External Signs, So Plainly As Does A Dog, When With Drooping Ears, Hanging Lips, Flexuous Body, And Wagging Tail, He Meets His Beloved Master.

It Is Certain That There May Be Extraordinary Mental Activity With An Extremely Small Absolute Mass Of Nervous Matter: Thus The Wonderfully Diversified Instincts, Mental Powers, And Affections Of Ants Are Notorious, Yet Their Cerebral Ganglia Are Not So Large As The Quarter Of A Small Pin's Head. Under This Point Of View, The Brain Of An Ant Is One Of The Most Marvelous Atoms Of Matter In The World, Perhaps More So Than The Brain Of A Man.

I Agree With Agassiz That Dogs Possess Something Very Like Conscience.

The More Efficient Causes Of Progress Seem To Consist Of A Good Education During Youth Whilst The Brain Is Impressible, And Of A High Standard Of Excellence, Inculcated By The Ablest And Best Men, Embodied In The Laws, Customs And Traditions Of The Nation, And Enforced By Public Opinion.

When I View All Beings Not As Special Creations, But As The Lineal Descendants Of Some Few Beings Which Lived Long Before The First Bed Of The Cambrian System Was Deposited, They Seem To Me To Become Ennobled.

It Occurred To Me, In 1837, That Something Might Perhaps Be Made Of This Question (the Origin Of The Species) By Patiently Accumulating And Reflecting On All Sorts Of Facts Which Could Possibly Have Any Bearing On It

Delight Itself, However, Is A Weak Term To Express The Feelings Of A Naturalist.

After My Return To England It Appeared To Me That By Following The Example Of Lyell In Geology, And By Collecting All Facts Which Bore In Any Way On The Variation Of Animals And Plants Under Domestication And Nature, Some Light Might Perhaps Be Thrown On The Whole Subject.

To Conclude, Therefore, Let No Man Out Of A Weak Conceit Of Sobriety, Or An Ill-applied Moderation, Think Or Maintain, That A Man Can Search Too Far Or Be Too Well Studied In The Book Of God's Word, Or In The Book Of God's Works; Divinity Or Philosophy; But Rather Let Men Endeavour An Endless Progress Or Proficience In Both."—bacon: "advancement Of Learning".

About Weak Points [of The Origin] I Agree. The Eye To This Day Gives Me A Cold Shudder, But When I Think Of The Fine Known Gradations, My Reason Tells Me I Ought To Conquer The Cold Shudder.

It Has Been A Bitter Mortification For Me To Digest The Conclusion That The "race Is For The Strong" And That I Shall Probably Do Little More But Be Content To Admire The Strides Others Made In Science.

Worms Have Played A More Important Part In The History Of The World Than Humans Would At First Suppose.

But Geology Carries The Day: It Is Like The Pleasure Of Gambling, Speculating, On First Arriving, What The Rocks May Be; I Often Mentally Cry Out 3 To 1 Tertiary Against Primitive; But The Latter Have Hitherto Won All The Bets.

It Is Impossible To Concieve Of This Immense And Wonderful Universe As The Result Of Blind Chance Or Necessity.

It Is Mere Rubbish Thinking, At Present, Of Origin Of Life; One Might As Well Think Of Origin Of Matter.

There Is A Grandeur In This View Of Life, From So Simple A Beginning Endless Forms Most Beautiful Are Being Evolved

...he Who Remains Passive When Over-whelmed With Grief Loses His Best Chance Of Recovering His Elasticity Of Mind.

The Instruction At Edinburgh Was Altogether By Lectures, And These Were Intolerably Dull, With The Exception Of Those On Chemistry.

Our Ancestor Was An Animal Which Breathed Water, Had A Swim-bladder, A Great Swimming Tail, An Imperfect Skull & Undoubtedly Was An Hermaphrodite! Here Is A Pleasant Genealogy For Mankind.

May We Not Suspect That The Vague But Very Real Fears Of Children, Which Are Quite Independent Of Experience, Are The Inherited Effects Of Real Dangers And Abject Superstitions During Ancient Savage Times?

The Love Of A Dog For His Master Is Notorious; In The Agony Of Death He Has Been Known To Caress His Master, And Everyone Has Heard Of The Dog Suffering Under Vivisection, Who Licked The Hand Of The Operator; This Man, Unless He Had A Heart Of Stone, Must Have Felt Remorse To The Last Hour Of His Life.

Of All The Differences Between Man And The Lower Animals, The Moral Sense Or Conscience Is By Far The Most Important. This Sense, As Mackintosh Remarks, "has A Rightful Supremacy Over Every Other Principle Of Human Action"; It Is Summed Up In That Short But Imperious Word "ought," So Full Of High Significance. It Is The Most Noble Of All The Attributes Of Man, Leading Him Without A Moment's Hesitation To Risk His Life For That Of A Fellow-creature; Or After Due Deliberation, Impelled Simply By The Deep Feeling Of Right Or Duty, To Sacrifice It In Some Great Cause.

...i Feel Most Deeply That The Whole Subject Is Too Profound For The Human Intellect. A Dog Might As Well Speculate On The Mind Of Newton.— Let Each Man Hope & Believe What He Can.—

People Complain Of The Unequal Distribution Of Wealth [but It Is A Far Greater] Injustice That Any One Man Should Have The Power To Write So Many Brilliant Essays... There Is No One Who Writes Like [thomas Huxley].

Seeing Every Height Crowned With Its Crater, And The Boundaries Of Most Of The Lava-streams Still Distinct, We Are Led To Believe That Within A Period, Geologically Recent, The Unbroken Ocean Was Here Spread Out. Hence, Both In Space And Time, We Seem To Be Brought Somewhat Near To That Great Fact — That Mystery Of Mysteries — The First Appearance Of New Beings On This Earth.

Thus We Have Given To Man A Pedigree Of Prodigious Length, But Not, It May Be Said, Of Noble Quality.

The Willing Horse Is Always Overworked.

A Celebrated Author And Divine Has Written To Me That He Has Gradually Learned To See That It Is Just As Noble A Conception Of The Deity To Believe That He Created A Few Original Forms Capable Of Self-development Into Other And Needful Forms, As To Believe That He Required A Fresh Act Of Creation To Supply The Voids Caused By The Action Of His Laws.

I Am Sorry To Have To Inform You That I Do Not Believe In The Bible As A Divine Revelation, & Therefore Not In Jesus Christ As The Son Of God.

I Can Indeed Hardly See How Anyone Ought To Wish Christianity To Be True For If So The Plain Language Of The Text Seems To Show That The Men Who Do Not Believe, And This Would Include My Father, Brother And Almost All Of My Friends, Will Be Everlastingly Punished. And This Is A Damnable Doctrine.

The Most Energetic Workers I Have Encountered In My World Travels Are The Vegetarian Miners Of Chile.

The Season Of Love Is That Of Battle. The Roots Of These Fights Run Deep.

The Noble Science Of Geology Loses Glory From The Extreme Imperfection Of The Record. The Crust Of The Earth With Its Embedded Remains Must Not Be Looked At As A Well-filled Museum, But As A Poor Collection Made At Hazard And At Rare Intervals.

I Have Watched How Steadily The General Feeling, As Shown At Elections, Has Been Rising Against Slavery. What A Proud Thing For England If She Is The First European Nation Which Utterly Abolishes It! I Was Told Before Leaving England That After Living In Slave Countries All My Opinions Would Be Altered; The Only Alteration I Am Aware Of Is Forming A Much Higher Estimate Of The Negro Character.

In The Distant Future I See Open Fields For Far More Important Researches. Psychology Will Be Based On A New Foundation, That Of The Necessary Acquirement Of Each Mental Power And Capacity By Gradation. Light Will Be Thrown On The Origin Of Man And His History.

I Look At The Natural Geological Record As A History Of The World Imperfectly Kept And Written In A Changing Dialect; Of This History We Possess The Last Volume Alone, Relating Only To Two Or Three Countries. Of This Volume, Only Here And There A Short Chapter Has Been Preserved; And Of Each Page, Only Here And There A Few Lines.

An Agnostic Would Be The More Correct Description Of My State Of Mind.

A Man Who Has No Assured And Ever Present Belief In The Existence Of A Personal God Or Of A Future Existence With Retribution And Reward, Can Have For His Rule Of Life, As Far As I Can See, Only To Follow Those Impulses And Instincts Which Are The Strongest Or Which Seem To Him The Best Ones

A Grain In The Balance Will Determine Which Individual Shall Live And Which Shall Die - Which Variety Or Species Shall Increase In Number, And Which Shall Decrease, Or Finally Become Extinct.

I Always Feel As If My Books Came Half Out Of Lyell's Brain... & Therefore That When Seeing A Thing Never Seen By Lyell, One Yet Saw It Partially Through His Eyes.

When The Sexes Differ In Beauty, In The Power Of Singing, Or In Producing What I Have Called Instrumental Music, It Is Almost Invariably The Male Which Excels The Female.

The More I Study Nature, The More I Become Impressed With Ever-increasing Force With The Conclusion, That The Contrivances And Beautiful Adaptations Slowly Acquired Through Each Part Occasionally Varying In A Slight Degree But In Many Ways, With The Preservation Or Natural Selection Of Those Variations Which Are Beneficial To The Organism Under The Complex And Ever-varying Conditions Of Life, Transcend In An Incomparable Degree The Contrivances And Adaptations Which The Most Fertile Imagination Of Man Could Suggest With Unlimited Time At His Disposal.

When Primeval Man ﬁrst Used ﬂint Stones For Any Purpose, He Would Have Accidentally Splintered Them, And Would Then Have Used The Sharp Fragments. From This Step It Would Be A Small One To Break The ﬂints On Purpose And Not A Very Wide Step To Fashion Them Rudely.

The Main Conclusion Arrived At In This Work, Namely That Man Is Descended From Some Lowly-organised Form, Will, I Regret To Think, Be Highly Distasteful To Many Persons. But There Can Hardly Be A Doubt That We Are Descended From Barbarians.

A Language, Like A Species, When Extinct, Never... Reappears.

During My Second Year At Edinburgh [1826-27] I Attended Jameson's Lectures On Geology And Zoology, But They Were Incredible Dull. The Sole Effect They Produced On Me Was The Determination Never As Long As I Lived To Read A Book On Geology.

A Surprising Number [of Novels] Have Been Read Aloud To Me, And I Like All If Moderately Good, And If They Do Not End Unhappily-against Which A Law Ought To Be Passed.

How So Many Absurd Rules Of Conduct, As Well As So Many Absurd Religious Beliefs, Have Originated, We Do Not Know; Nor How It Is That They Have Become, In All Quarters Of The World, So Deeply Impressed On The Minds Of Men; But It Is Worthy Of Remark That A Belief Constantly Inculcated During The Early Years Of Life, While The Brain Is Impressionable, Appears To Acquire Almost The Nature Of An Instinct; And The Very Essence Of An Instinct Is That It Is Followed Independently Of Reason.

Freedom Of Thought Is Best Promoted By The Gradual Illumination Of Men’s Minds Which Follows From The Advance Of Science.

There Is Grandeur In This View Of Life, With Its Several Powers, Having Been Originally Breathed Into A Few Forms Or Into One; And That, Whilst This Planet Has Gone Cycling On According To The Fixed Law Of Gravity, From So Simple A Beginning Endless Forms Most Beautiful And Most Wonderful Have Been, And Are Being, Evolved.

If It Could Be Demonstrated That Any Complex Organ Existed, Which Could Not Possibly Have Been Formed By Numerous, Successive, Slight Modifications, My Theory Would Absolutely Break Down. But I Can Find No Such Case.

Theory Of Evolution

Creation Science

Evolution Of Man

A Republic Cannot Succeed, Till It Contains A Certain Body Of Men Imbued With The Principles Of Justice And Honour.

Such Simple Instincts As Bees Making A Beehive Could Be Sufficient To Overthrow My Whole Theory.

I Always Make Special Notes About Evidence That Contridicts Me: Supportive Evidence I Can Remember Without Trying.

The Question Of Whether There Exists A Creator And Ruler Of The Universe Has Been Answered In The Affirmative By Some Of The Highest Intellects That Have Ever Existed.

Although I Am Fully Convinced Of The Truth Of The Views Given In This Volume Under The Form Of An Abstract, I By No Means Expect To Convince Experienced Naturalists Whose Minds Are Stocked With A Multitude Of Facts All Viewed, During A Long Course Of Years, From A Point Of View Directly Opposite To Mine... I Look With Confidence To The Future, To Young And Rising Naturalists, Who Will Be Able To View Both Sides Of The Question With Impartiality.

What Wretched Doings Come From The Ardor Of Fame; The Love Of Truth Alone Would Never Make One Man Attack Another Bitterly.

It Is Like Confessing To A Murder.

Positive Atheism

I Hate A Barnacle As No Man Ever Did Before, Not Even A Sailor In A Slow-sailing Ship.

That There Is Much Suffering In The World No One Disputes. Which Is More Likely, That Pain And Evil Are The Result Of An All-powerful And Good God, Or The Product Of Uncaring Natural Forces? The Presence Of Much Suffering Agrees Well With The View That All Organic Beings Have Been Developed Through Variation And Natural Selection.

Sympathy For The Lowest Animals Is One Of The Noblest Virtues With Which Man Is Endowed.

We Behold The Face Of Nature Bright With Gladness.

Origin Of Species

If I Had My Life To Live Over Again, I Would Have Made A Rule To Read Some Poetry And Listen To Some Music At Least Once Every Week.

Only Picture To Yourself A Nice Soft Wife On A Sofa With Good Fire, & Books & Music.

To Suppose That The Eye Could Have Been Formed By Natural Selection, Seems, I Freely Confess, Absurd In The Highest Possible Degree

Theory Of Evolution

Creation Science

It Is Not The Most Intellectual Of The Species That Survives; It Is Not The Strongest That Survives; But The Species That Survives Is The One That Is Able Best To Adapt And Adjust To The Changing Environment In Which It Finds Itself.

Changing Environment

Ignorance More Frequently Begets Confidence Than Does Knowledge: It Is Those Who Know Little, And Not Those Who Know Much, Who So Positively Assert That This Or That Problem Will Never Be Solved By Science.

Hereafter We Shall Be Compelled To Acknowledge That The Only Distinction Between Species And Well-marked Varieties Is, That The Latter Are Known, Or Believed To Be Connected At The Present Day By Intermediate Gradations Whereas Species Were Formerly Thus Connected.

He Who Understands Baboon Would Do More Towards Metaphysics Than Locke.

[t]he Young And The Old Of Widely Different Races, Both With Man And Animals, Express The Same State Of Mind By The Same Movements.

Language Is An Art, Like Brewing Or Baking.... It Certainly Is Not A True Instinct, For Every Language Has To Be Learnt.

Nothing Before Had Ever Made Me Thoroughly Realise, Though I Had Read Various Scientific Books, That Science Consists In Grouping Facts So That General Laws Or Conclusions May Be Drawn From Them.

I Have No Great Quickness Of Apprehension Or Wit Which Is So Remarkable In Some Clever Men, For Instance Huxley

How Fleeting Are The Wishes And Efforts Of Man! How Short His Time! And Consequently How Poor Will His Products Be, Compared With Those Accumulated By Nature During Whole Geological Periods. Can We Wonder, Then, That Nature's Productions Should Be Far 'truer' In Character Than Man's Productions; That They Should Be Infinitely Better Adapted To The Most Complex Conditions Of Life, And Should Plainly Bear The Stamp Of Far Higher Workmanship?

Endless Forms Most Beautiful And Most Wonderful Have Been, And Are Being Evolved

Theory Of Evolution

Some Few, And I Am One Of Them, Even Wish To God, Though At The Loss Of Millions Of Lives, That The North Would Proclaim A Crusade Against Slavery. In The Long-run, A Million Horrid Deaths Would Be Amply Repaid In The Cause Of Humanity. Great God! How I Should Like To See The Greatest Curse On Earth - Slavery - Abolished!

History Shows That The Human Mind, Fed By Constant Accessions Of Knowledge, Periodically Grows Too Large For Its Theoretical Coverings, And Bursts Them Asunder To Appear In New Habiliments, As The Feeding And Growing Grub, At Intervals, Casts Its Too Narrow Skin And Assumes Another.

Nevertheless So Profound Is Our Ignorance, And So High Our Presumption, That We Marvel When We Hear Of The Extinction Of An Organic Being; And As We Do Not See The Cause, We Invoke Cataclysms To Desolate The World, Or Invent Laws On The Duration Of The Forms Of Life!

Even People Who Aren’t Geniuses Can Outthink The Rest Of Mankind If They Develop Certain Thinking Habits.

It Strikes Me That All Our Knowledge About The Structure Of Our Earth Is Very Much Like What An Old Hen Would Know Of The Hundred-acre Field In A Corner Of Which She Is Scratching.

The Times Is Getting More Detestable (but That Is Too Weak Word) Than Ever.

False Facts Are Highly Injurious To The Progress Of Science, For They Often Endure Long; But False Views, If Supported By Some Evidence, Do Little Harm, For Every One Takes A Salutary Pleasure In Proving Their Falseness.

Theory Of Evolution

I Never Gave Up Christianity Until I Was Forty Years Of Age.

Blushing Is The Most Peculiar And The Most Human Of All Expressions. Monkeys Redden From Passion, But It Would Require An Overwhelming Amount Of Evidence To Make Us Believe That Any Animal Could Blush.

I Am Dying By Inches, From Not Having Any Body To Talk To About Insects.

But Then With Me The Horrid Doubt Always Arises Whether The Convictions Of Man's Mind, Which Has Been Developed From The Mind Of The Lower Animals, Are Of Any Value Or At All Trustworthy. Would Any One Trust In The Convictions Of A Monkey's Mind, If There Are Any Convictions In Such A Mind?

The More We Know Of The Fixed Laws Of Nature The More Incredible Do Miracles Become, - That The Men At That Time Were Ignorant And Credulous To A Degree Almost Incomprehensible By Us, - That The Gospels Cannot Be Proved To Have Been Written Simultaneously With The Events, - That They Differ In Many Important Details, Far Too Important As It Seemed To Me To Be Admitted As The Usual Inaccuracies Of Eye-witnesses; - By Such Reflections As These... I Gradually Came To Disbelieve In Christianity As A Divine Revelation.

Only The Fittest Will Survive.

The Expression Often Used By Mr. Herbert Spencer Of The Survival Of The Fittest Is More Accurate, And Is Sometimes Equally Convenient.

It Is So Easy To Hide Our Ignorance Under Such Expressions As The Plan Of Creation Or Unity Of Design, Etc., And To Think That We Give An Explanation When We Only Restate A Fact.

A Man Who Dares To Waste One Hour Of Time Has Not Discovered The Value Of Life.

Not One Great Country Can Be Named, From The Polar Regions In The North To New Zealand In The South, In Which The Aborigines Do Not Tattoo Themselves.

I Believe We Were All Glad To Leave New Zealand. It Is Not A Pleasant Place. Amongst The Natives There Is Absent That Charming Simplicity .... And The Greater Part Of The English Are The Very Refuse Of Society.

This Preservation Of Favourable Variations And The Destruction Of Injurious Variations, I Call Natural Selection, Or The Survival Of The Fittest. Variations Neither Useful Nor Injurious Would Not Be Affected By Natural Selection And Would Be Left A Fluctuating Element.

Everything In Nature Is The Result Of Fixed Laws.

The Moral Faculties Are Generally And Justly Esteemed As Of Higher Value Than The Intellectual Powers.

Whoever Is Led To Believe That Species Are Mutable Will Do Good Service By Conscientiously Expressing His Conviction; For Only Thus Can The Load Of Prejudice By Which This Subject Is Overwhelmed Be Removed.

The Tree Of Life Should Perhaps Be Called The Coral Of Life, Base Of Branches Dead; So That Passages Cannot Be Seen-this Again Offers Contradiction To Constant Succession Of Germs In Progress.

I Have Tried Lately To Read Shakespeare, And Found It So Intolerably Dull That It Nauseated Me.

The Earthquake, However, Must Be To Every One A Most Impressive Event: The Earth, Considered From Our Earliest Childhood As The Type Of Solidity, Has Oscillated Like A Thin Crust Beneath Our Feet; And In Seeing The Laboured Works Of Man In A Moment Overthrown, We Feel The Insignificance Of His Boasted Power.

How Paramount The Future Is To The Present When One Is Surrounded By Children.

... If Variations Useful To Any Organic Being Do Occur, Assuredly Individuals Thus Characterized Will Have The Best Chance Of Being Perserved In The Struggle For Life; And From The Strong Principle Of Inheritance They Will Tend To Produce Offsping Similarly Characterized. This Principle Of Preservation, I Have Called, For The Sake Of Brevity, Natural Selection.

Your Words Have Come True With A Vengeance That I Shd [should] Be Forestalled ... I Never Saw A More Striking Coincidence. If Wallace Had My M.s. Sketch Written Out In 1842 He Could Not Have Made A Better Short Abstract! Even His Terms Now Stand As Heads Of My Chapters.

From My Early Youth I Have Had The Strongest Desire To Understand Or Explain Whatever I Observed. ... To Group All Facts Under Some General Laws.

The Formation Of Different Languages And Of Distinct Species And The Proofs That Both Have Been Developed Through A Gradual Process, Are Curiously Parallel.

Nothing Can Be More Improving To A Young Naturalist, Than A Journey In A Distant Country.

The Voyage Of The Beagle Has Been By Far The Most Important Event In My Life And Has Determined My Whole Career; Yet It Depended On So Small A Circumstance As My Uncle Offering To Drive Me 30 Miles To Shrewsbury, Which Few Uncles Would Have Done, And On Such A Trifle As The Shape Of My Nose.

...for The Shield May Be As Important For Victory, As The Sword Or Spear.

Believing As I Do That Man In The Distant Future Will Be A Far More Perfect Creature Than He Now Is, It Is An Intolerable Thought That He And All Other Sentient Beings Are Doomed To Complete Annihilation After Such Long-continued Slow Progress.

I Liked The Thought Of Being A Country Clergyman. Accordingly I Read With Care Pearson On The Creed And A Few Other Books On Divinity; And As I Did Not Then In The Least Doubt The Strict And Literal Truth Of Every Word In The Bible, I Soon Persuaded Myself That Our Creed Must Be Fully Accepted.

We Fancied Even That The Bushes Smelt Unpleasantly.

I Have Been Speculating Last Night What Makes A Man A Discoverer Of Undiscovered Things; And A Most Perplexing Problem It Is. Many Men Who Are Very Clever - Much Cleverer Than The Discoverers - Never Originate Anything.

Till Facts Are Grouped & Called There Can Be No Prediction. The Only Advantage Of Discovering Laws Is To Foretell What Will Happen & To See Bearing Of Scattered Facts.

It Is Well-known That Those Who Have Charge Of Young Infants, That It Is Difficult To Feel Sure When Certain Movements About Their Mouths Are Really Expressive; That Is When They Really Smile. Hence I Carefully Watched My Own Infants. One Of Them At The Age Of Forty-five Days, And Being In A Happy Frame Of Mind, Smiled... I Observed The Same Thing On The Following Day: But On The Third Day The Child Was Not Quite Well And There Was No Trace Of A Smile, And This Renders It Probable That The Previous Smiles Were Real.

If Every One Were Cast In The Same Mould, There Would Be No Such Thing As Beauty.

If Mozart, Instead Of Playing The Pianoforte At Three Years Old With Wonderfully Little Practice, Had Played A Tune With No Practice At All, He Might Truly Have Been Said To Have Done So Instinctively.

It Is Not The Strongest Of The Species That Survives, Nor The Most Intelligent That Survives. It Is The One That Is The Most Adaptable To Change, That Lives Within The Means Available And Works Co-operatively Against Common Threats.

So In Regard To Mental Qualities, Their Transmission Is Manifest In Our Dogs, Horses And Other Domestic Animals. Besides Special Tastes And Habits, General Intelligence, Courage, Bad And Good Tempers. Etc., Are Certainly Transmitted.

After Five Years' Work I Allowed Myself To Speculate On The Subject, And Drew Up Some Short Notes; These I Enlarged In 1844 Into A Sketch Of The Conclusions, Which Then Seemed To Me Probable: From That Period To The Present Day I Have Steadily Pursued The Same Object. I Hope That I May Be Excused For Entering On These Personal Details, As I Give Them To Show That I Have Not Been Hasty In Coming To A Decision.‎

Although Much Remains Obscure, And Will Long Remain Obscure, ... I Am Convinced That Natural Selection Has Been The Main But Not Exclusive Means Of Modification.

At Some Future Period, Not Very Distant As Measured By Centuries, The Civilised Races Of Man Will Almost Certainly Exterminate And Replace Throughout The World The Savage Races. At The Same Time The Anthropomorphous Apes, As Professor Schaaffhausen Has Remarked, Will No Doubt Be Exterminated. The Break Will Then Be Rendered Wider, For It Will Intervene Between Man In A More Civilised State As We May Hope, Than The Caucasian And Some Ape As Low As A Baboon, Instead Of As At Present Between The Negro Or Australian And The Gorilla.

Nature Will Tell You A Direct Lie If She Can.

At Last Gleams Of Light Have Come, And I Am Almost Convinced (quite Contrary To Opinion I Started With) That Species Are Not (it Is Like Confessing A Murder) Immutable. Heaven Forfend Me From Lamarck Nonsense Of A 'tendency To Progression', 'adaptations From The Slow Willing Of Animals', &c! But The Conclusions I Am Led To Are Not Widely Different From His; Though The Means Of Change Are Wholly So. I Think I Have Found Out (here's Presumption!) The Simple Way By Which Species Become Exquisitely Adapted To Various Ends.

We Are Always Slow In Admitting Any Great Change Of Which We Do Not See The Intermediate Steps

I Love Fools' Experiments. I Am Always Making Them.

Theory Of Evolution

It Is A Cursed Evil To Any Man To Become As Absorbed In Any Subject As I Am In Mine.

We Will Now Discuss In A Little More Detail The Struggle For Existence.

The Loss Of These Tastes [for Poetry And Music] Is A Loss Of Happiness, And May Possibly Be Injurious To The Intellect, And More Probably To The Moral Character, By Enfeebling The Emotional Part Of Our Nature.

At No Time Am I A Quick Thinker Or Writer: Whatever I Have Done In Science Has Solely Been By Long Pondering, Patience And Industry.

The Following Proposition Seems To Me In A High Degree Probable—namely, That Any Animal Whatever, Endowed With Well-marked Social Instincts, The Parental And Filial Affections Being Here Included, Would Inevitably Acquire A Moral Sense Or Conscience, As Soon As Its Intellectual Powers Had Become As Well, Or Nearly As Well Developed, As In Man. For, Firstly, The Social Instincts Lead An Animal To Take Pleasure In The Society Of Its Fellows, To Feel A Certain Amount Of Sympathy With Them, And To Perform Various Services For Them.

A Bad Earthquake At Once Destroys The Oldest Associations: The World, The Very Emblem Of All That Is Solid, Has Moved Beneath Our Feet Like A Crust Over A Fluid; One Second Of Time Has Conveyed To The Mind A Strange Idea Of Insecurity, Which Hours Of Reflection Would Never Have Created.

I Could Show Fight On Natural Selection Having Done And Doing More For The Progress Of Civilization Than You Seem Inclined To Admit. Remember What Risk The Nations Of Europe Ran, Not So Many Centuries Ago Of Being Overwhelmed By The Turks, And How Ridiculous Such An Idea Now Is! The More Civilised So-called Caucasian Races Have Beaten The Turkish Hollow In The Struggle For Existence. Looking To The World At No Very Distant Date, What An Endless Number Of The Lower Races Will Have Been Eliminated By The Higher Civilized Races Throughout The World.

It Is Always Advisable To Perceive Clearly Our Ignorance.

I Am Not Apt To Follow Blindly The Lead Of Other Men

We Are Not Here Concerned With Hopes Or Fears, Only With Truth As Far As Our Reason Permits Us To Discover It.

It's An Awful Stretcher To Believe That A Peacock's Tail Was Thus Formed But ... Most People Just Don't Get It - I Must Be A Very Bad Explainer

...one Doubts Existence Of Free Will [because] Every Action Determined By Heredity, Constitution, Example Of Others Or Teaching Of Others." "this View Should Teach One Profound Humility, One Deserves No Credit For Anything...nor Ought One To Blame Others.

In The Struggle For Survival, The Fittest Win Out At The Expense Of Their Rivals Because They Succeed In Adapting Themselves Best To Their Environment.

Free Will Is To Mind What Chance Is To Matter.

Who When Examining In The Cabinet Of The Entomologist The Gay And Exotic Butterflies, And Singular Cicadas, Will Associate With These Lifeless Objects, The Ceaseless Harsh Music Of The Latter, And The Lazy Flight Of The Former - The Sure Accompaniments Of The Still, Glowing Noonday Of The Tropics.

I Have Long Discovered That Geologists Never Read Each Other's Works, And That The Only Object In Writing A Book Is A Proof Of Earnestness.

Jealousy Was Plainly Exhibited When I Fondled A Large Doll, And When I Weighed His Infant Sister, He Being Then 15? Months Old. Seeing How Strong A Feeling Of Jealousy Is In Dogs, It Would Probably Be Exhibited By Infants At Any Earlier Age Than Just Specified If They Were Tried In A Fitting Manner

We Must, However, Acknowledge, As It Seems To Me, That Man With All His Noble Qualities... Still Bears In His Bodily Frame The Indelible Stamp Of His Lowly Origin.

It At Once Struck Me That Under These Circumstances Favourable Variations Would Tend To Be Preserved, And Unfavourable Ones To Be Destroyed.

I Ought, Or I Ought Not, Constitute The Whole Of Morality.

On The Theory Of Natural Selection We Can Clearly Understand The Full Meaning Of That Old Canon In Natural History, “natura Non Facit Saltum.” This Canon, If We Look Only To The Present Inhabitants Of The World, Is Not Strictly Correct, But If We Include All Those Of Past Times, It Must By My Theory Be Strictly True.

I Am Almost Convinced (quite Contrary To Opinion I Started With) That Species Are Not (it Is Like Confessing A Murder) Immutable.

Origin Of Species

But Just In Proportion As This Process Of Extermination Has Acted On An Enormous Scale, So Must The Number Of Intermediate Varieties, Which Have Formerly Existed, Be Truly Enormous. Why Then Is Not Every Geological Formation And Every Stratum Full Of Such Intermediate Links? Geology Assuredly Does Not Reveal Any Such Finely Graduated Organic Chain; And This, Perhaps, Is The Most Obvious And Serious Objection Which Can Be Urged Against The Theory. The Explanation Lies, As I Believe, In The Extreme Imperfection Of The Geological Record.

Theory Of Evolution

As Natural Selection Works Solely By And For The Good Of Each Being, All Corporeal And Mental Endowments Will Tend To Progress Toward Perfection.

As Some Of The Lowest Organisms, In Which Nerves Cannot Be Detected, Are Capable Of Perceiving Light, It Does Not Seem Impossible That Certain Sensitive Elements In Their Sarcode Should Become Aggregated And Developed Into Nerves, Endowed With This Special Sensibility.

Ignorance More Frequently Begets Confidence Than Does Knowledge.

Man Tends To Increase At A Greater Rate Than His Means Of Subsistence.

We Have Happy Days, Remember Good Dinners.

Ultimately A Highly Complex Sentiment, Having Its First Origin In The Social Instincts, Largely Guided By The Approbation Of Our Fellow-men, Ruled By Reason, Self-interest, And In Later Times By Deep Religious Feelings, Confirmed By Instruction And Habit, All Combined, Constitute Our Moral Sense Or Conscience.

The Presence Of A Body Of Well-instructed Men, Who Have Not To Labor For Their Daily Bread, Is Important To A Degree Which Cannot Be Overestimated; As All High Intellectual Work Is Carried On By Them, And On Such Work Material Progress Of All Kinds Mainly Depends, Not To Mention Other And Higher Advantages.

When It Was First Said That The Sun Stood Still And World Turned Round, The Common Sense Of Mankind Declared The Doctrine False; But The Old Saying Of Vox Populi, Vox Dei [the Voice Of The People Is The Voice Of God], As Every Philosopher Knows, Cannot Be Trusted In Science.

Nothing Can Be More Hopeless Than To Attempt To Explain This Similarity Of Pattern In Members Of The Same Class, By Utility Or By The Doctrine Of Final Causes.

I Feel Like An Old Warhorse At The Sound Of A Trumpet When I Read About The Capturing Of Rare Beetles.

Formerly Milton's Paradise Lost Had Been My Chief Favourite, And In My Excursions During The Voyage Of The Beagle, When I Could Take Only A Single Small Volume, I Always Chose Milton.

The Mystery Of The Beginning Of All Things Is Insoluble By Us; And I For One Must Be Content To Remain An Agnostic.

One Hand Has Surely Worked Throughout The Universe.

As For A Future Life, Every Man Must Judge For Himself Between Conflicting Vague Probabilities.

I Shall Always Feel Respect For Every One Who Has Written A Book, Let It Be What It May, For I Had No Idea Of The Trouble Which Trying To Write Common English Could Cost One—and Alas There Yet Remains The Worst Part Of All Correcting The Press.

Even The Humblest Mammal's Strong Sexual, Parental, And Social Instincts Give Rise To 'do Unto Others As Yourself' And 'love Thy Neighbor As Thyself'.

Man In His Arrogance Thinks Himself A Great Work, Worthy The Interposition Of A Great Deity. More Humble And I Believe True To Consider Him Created From Animals.

Thus Disbelief Crept Over Me At A Very Slow Rate, But At Last Was Complete. The Rate Was So Slow That I Felt No Distress, And Have Never Since Doubted Even For A Single Second That My Conclusion Was Correct.

I Would Give Absolutely Nothing For The Theory Of Natural Selection, If It Requires Miraculous Additions At Any One Stage Of Descent.

Animals Manifestly Enjoy Excitement, And Suffer From Annul And May Exhibit Curiosity.

There Is No Fundamental Difference Between Man And The Higher Mammals In Their Mental Faculties...the Difference In Mind Between Man And The Higher Animals, Great As It Is, Certainly Is One Of Degree And Not Of Kind.

Man Selects Only For His Own Good: Nature Only For That Of The Being Which She Tends.

Origin Of Species

The Explanation Of Types Of Structure In Classes - As Resulting From The Will Of The Deity, To Create Animals On Certain Plans - Is No Explanation. It Has Not The Character Of A Physical Law And Is Therefore Utterly Useless. It Foretells Nothing Because We Know Nothing Of The Will Of The Deity, How It Acts And Whether Constant Or Inconstant Like That Of Man.

I Can Remember The Very Spot In The Road, Whilst In My Carriage, When To My Joy The Solution Occurred To Me.

We Have Seen That The Senses And Intuitions, The Various Emotions And Faculties, Such As Love, Memory, Attention And Curiosity, Imitation, Reason, Etc., Of Which Man Boasts, May Be Found In An Incipient, Or Even Sometimes In A Well-developed Condition, In The Lower Animals.

The Western Nations Of Europe, Who Now So Immeasurably Surpass Their Former Savage Progenitors, And Stand At The Summit Of Civilization, Owe Little Or None Of Their Superiority To Direct Inheritance From The Old Greeks, Though They Owe Much To The Written Works Of That Wonderful People.

It Is Absurd To Talk Of One Animal Being Higher Than Another...we Consider Those, Where The Intellectual Faculties Most Developed As The Highest. - A Bee Doubtless Would [use] ... Instincts As A Criteria.

But When On Shore, & Wandering In The Sublime Forests, Surrounded By Views More Gorgeous Than Even Claude Ever Imagined, I Enjoy A Delight Which None But Those Who Have Experienced It Can Understand.

I Am A Firm Believer, That Without Speculation There Is No Good And Original Observation.

Life Is Nearly Over With Me. I Have Taken No Pains About My Style Of Writing.

The Chief Distinction In The Intellectual Powers Of The Two Sexes Is Shown By Mans Attaining To A Higher Eminence, In Whatever He Takes Up, Than The Woman. Whether Deep Thought, Reason, Or Imagination Or Merely The Use Of The Senses And Hands.....we May Also Infer.....the Average Mental Power In Man Must Be Above That Of Woman.

Daily It Is Forced Home On The Mind Of The Biologist That Nothing, Not Even The Wind That Blows, Is So Unstable As The Level Of The Crust Of This Earth.

My Books Have Sold Largely In England, Have Been Translated Into Many Languages, And Passed Through Several Editions In Foreign Countries. I Have Heard It Said That The Success Of A Work Abroad Is The Best Test Of Its Enduring Value. I Doubt Whether This Is At All Trustworthy; But Judged By This Standard My Name Ought To Last For A Few Years.

It Is A Truly Wonderful Fact - The Wonder Of Which We Are Apt To Overlook From Familiarity - That All Animals And All Plants Throughout All Time And Space Should Be Related To Each Other In Group Subordinate To Group.

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